This satiric comedy, which ridicules the absurd conceptions of Soviet Russia held by Americans, involves a visit to the USSR by a fearful American and his cowboy bodyguard, who are promptly abducted by hooligans. Directed by Lev Kuleshov, a film theorist and organizer of the pioneering Cine-Lab collective where Sergei Eisenstein (among others) studied filmmaking, the frenetic Mr. West stands in direct contrast to the static living-room melodramas that Russian cinema was then known for. Appropriating the energy of the American western and comedy, Kuleshov demanded that each scene propel the narrative, and the viewer, forward.